Long Rest Poll

[Minigiant]

I think having rests recharge only your Hit Dice (not full HP) is the way to go. That's a decent amount of healing, but not a crazy amount. Add a Level 3+ PC with the Healer trait and you're still keep the party at pretty high HPs.

Folks who want "gritty" can simply restrict the number of HD recharged to Constitution modifier (min 1) or something.

This is my preference. Long rest just restore HD. Hen you have to spend them. This puts the badly injured down for 3 days.

1 HP 2nd level fighter takes a long rest. Regains his HD and spends them to get to about 60% HP.

Long rests again. Regains HD and spends them to get to 100%.

Long rest again. Now has 100% HD and all his HD.

 

[Li Shenron]

Undecided.

Normally I would not like full healing overnight.

However the current description of HP and health is much more heavily bent towards "HP as something else than physical" than previous editions, to the point that it almost feels like the real physical damage is the one you get with the last blow which takes you to negative HP. With this new perspective, full healing those minor scratches and fatigue overnight makes more sense.

In fact, healing from negative HP (i.e. real injury) is another matter entirely, and right now I'm not sure but it seemed to me there are no rules for that with natural healing, only to recover consciousness but not to get HP back naturally if you're below 0 (only with magic or healer's kit).

Actually it's quite unclear to me... if nobody heals you when you're below 0, you can stabilize naturally and gain 1hp. It is then mentioned somewhere else (Healing section) that when you regain hit points you actually reset to 0 and then you regain those points, but it's talking about being healed with "magical or mundane means" so I am not sure if this includes that 1 hp from stabilizing naturally... If it doesn't, then you're still at negative or 0, and therefore you cannot take a short or long rest...

Confused...

 

[Odhanan]

The long rest rules suck. They should be nuked and sent out in the black, never to return.

 

[IronWolf]

I voted no, only because I do not like them as written. I am good with increased healing after 8 hours of rest. But guaranteed full hit points restored after a single night's rest? Not so much. I think there needs to be a happy medium.

 

[Harlekin]

To me it's one of the few things they got right. If you are sufficiently uninjured that you can climb a mountain/armwrestle a giant/swim through a lake/perform acrobatic stunts without penalty then healing should not take more than one good night's rest.

 

[seregil]

I voted no, because I do not agree that HP are not a measure of physical damage. To quote the 5E rules: "They include your physical durability and overall health"

Therefore, being low on HP also means being physically hurt. Yes, an injury that renders you debilitated would mean you are below 0 HP, but that does not mean you are perfectly ok above 0.

Therefore, for me, the long rest mechanics does not work because it does not reflect the real damage sustained by the PCs and it makes healing way too easy.

At the very least, there should be too rates of healing. Below 50% HP (bloodied), you heal slowly to represent the physical damage you are healing while above 50% you heal quickly to represent the fact that you are essentially resting instead of healing.

 

[DogBackward]

For those who dislike full healing overnight, might I suggest separating "camping" and "not camping".

In order to heal back to full from a long rest, you have to be in a relatively safe, comfortable area, such as a town or city. If you're forced to camp in the wilds, or hole up in a dungeon room, then you can rest for 8 hours as normal, but you only recover to a total of half your maximum hit points. For example, let's say that you normally have 60 HP at max. If you're at 20 HP and you take a long rest in the dungeon, you now have 30 HP. If you're at 40 HP and you take a long rest in the dungeon, then you wake up still at 40 HP. The kind of uncomfortable, dangerous "rest" that you get in the wilds can only do so much.

You would still recover all of your Hit Dice. So, if you want, you can use a healer's kit to spend some HD upon waking and heal up to full, at the cost of being less able to recover later in the day.

Note that this works well with the idea of Wounds reducing maximum Hit Dice. Each time you're reduced below 0 HP, you suffer a Wound. Each Wound you suffer reduces your maximum Hit Dice by one. Wounds can only be recovered by a full, in-town rest, at the rate of one per long rest.

This way, you can model long-term wounds and exertion without impacting short-term play. Adventuring parties can last a lot longer in the wilderness, but will still eventually have to return to town to rest and recuperate... or spend all of their time at half HP and with no natural healing available. Higher level (and thus higher HD) adventurers can push themselves farther, but they also have to spend longer recovering if they do... which is, I think, realistic.

It models long-term adventuring fatigue rather well, I think.

 

[Agamon]

To me it's one of the few things they got right. If you are sufficiently uninjured that you can climb a mountain/armwrestle a giant/swim through a lake/perform acrobatic stunts without penalty then healing should not take more than one good night's rest.

Exactly. The problem here isn't how many hps are healed, it's that grievous wounds aren't removed from the abstraction. There should be some penalty to reaching 0 hp beyond the possibility of dying, after the fact, and that penalty shouldn't disappear after a night's rest without magical aid.

 

[Ahnehnois]

To me it's one of the few things they got right. If you are sufficiently uninjured that you can climb a mountain/armwrestle a giant/swim through a lake/perform acrobatic stunts without penalty then healing should not take more than one good night's rest.

Well that's true.

But someone who does what D&D characters do for a living should rarely if ever be that uninjured.

This handwave long rest mechanic is overpowered, unnecessary, and hurts the game.

 

[keterys]

This handwave long rest mechanic is overpowered, unnecessary, and hurts the game.

Hmm... do you feel the same way about restoring spell slots?

Like, let's say a cleric can restore 200hp with their spell slots. Should they only be able to get back a similar slice (whatever rate of healing you're comfortable with)?